“How could it not be worth a queen’s time to see the workings of more advanced nations?”

“But don’t you get seasick?”

Bitterblue began to laugh. “Listen to you,” she said. “I’m going, Giddon.”

But I like myself best when I’m around you, he didn’t say. I try the hardest when I’m with you. Don’t leave.

“Giddon?” she said, turning those steady, trusting gray eyes upon him. “Does the Council have any interest in seeing Winterkeep?”

Chapter Four

Lovisa Cavenda slipped down the corridor and stopped outside her Politics of Trade classroom, tucking herself against the wall.

A professor walked by, not even glancing at her. Lovisa could make herself as still and uninteresting as a wall fixture. It was one of the benefits of being small.

She was early, as usual. The previous class was still in the room. Behind the closed door, she heard the even cadence of her mother’s voice, her faint northern accent, strong and assured; the occasional laughter of the class, engaged in the lesson. Every class taught by Lovisa’s mother, Ferla Cavenda, had a waiting list as long as this corridor. Students threw themselves against her high standards and competed for her approval. They wanted to be challenged by her.

Bullied by her? thought Lovisa, who’d grown up in Ferla’s house and knew the line was indistinct.

A pair of younger students, heads bent together and giggling, came down the corridor, not noticing Lovisa until they were practically upon her. She memorized their faces, their clothing, their silly conversation about someone they both had a crush on; then leveled an expressionless gaze upon them when they finally saw her.

Dropping into a startled silence, the two students hurried on. Lovisa watched them go, suppressing a shiver. A fire was crackling in the foyer fireplace around the corner, but September was chilly in Ledra.

Then someone else came down the corridor and Lovisa stood up straight. It was her own father.

“Papa!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Lovisa,” he said, coming to her with open arms, pulling her into a hug. He was a big man, stylishly dressed in a long, dark fur coat as usual, gold scarves at his throat and his black hair cut close. He smelled as he always did, like the warm, spicy teas he drank, and his brown face was different from hers in its striking handsomeness, strong boned and finely chiseled like a sculpture.

“How have you been?” he said.

“I’m fine,” said Lovisa, then repeated, “What are you doing here?” Her father was a politician and a businessman. She rarely saw him during the week. “Is anything wrong?”

“Of course not,” he said. “I merely thought I’d take my wife out to lunch. Would you like to join us?”

“I have class.”

“You should come home for dinner tonight, sweetheart.”